Valentine’s day can end up being one of the most fun or most miserable day of the year. So many of us get a chance to hold our loved ones close but so many of us are also forgotten.

This year, while cuddling with your boo by the fire, don’t forget to let a lonely homie know that you love them.

Platonic love, basic kinship, simply being friends, is too often forgotten and sometimes even seen as taboo. We reserve intimacy of any kind for our romantic partners and while this makes sense to an extent, who is to say we can’t have both? Why should there be shame in letting people we care about know that we do in fact care?

Romantic love is the most marketed and most palatable. It is easier to see a couple that fits within our limited definition of love publicly broadcast their love. Platonic pairs of people are not granted the same freedom even in small degrees.

When two friends share a moment or express affection, more often than not, observers are confused and sometimes even uncomfortable.

It’s time for this stigma to end.

When Valentine’s day comes around, enjoy the designated time with your significant other, but consider remembering your currently single ride or die friend who means everything to you, and tell them.

Every late night heart to heart, every inside joke, all the ugly screenshots from snapchat, the walks to and from school, all of the distracted study sessions, and all the happy moments we spend with our friends mean so much to us. There is no reason that we should not celebrate these moments too.

According to Suicide Prevention of the Central Coast, Valentine’s day/season show the highest suicide rates of any time of year in the country.

While no one should feel responsible for these statistics, it never hurts to do our part in making sure all of our loved ones are taken care of.

Dating is not an easy thing to do. Healthy relationships take work and for many of us it may be easy to love someone, but that isn’t always enough to keep a relationship alive.

In those troublesome times we don’t necessarily start searching for new romantic endeavors, but consult our friends.

Our friends are their despite the roughest moments. There are no strings and there are no conditions. There are no constructs and there are no games. All there is, is one of the purest and most wholesome forms of love we have.

By denying ourselves access to this platonic love, all we do is hurt ourselves and our friends.

Whether or not you are in a relationship, sometimes it is still hard to tell someone that you appreciate them being in your life. However, you never know how a simple confession of an already existing but unspoken feeling can change a person’s day for the better. In times like these, a single good day could save a life.

It’s time that simply telling the truth stops being a controversial issue. Friends sometimes are the only reason we can get by and keeping that feeling inside, or pretending it doesn’t exist in the first place is a dated and problematic practice.

Being afraid of our feelings doesn’t help any of us. Use Valentine’s day as a chance to make a change in your life and the life of someone you love.